A Tale of Mirror and Time
by ditzymagic
Summary: Hermione stares at the Mirror of Erised, begging it to answer her questions. But faux-Hermione only smiles and twirls in front of the locked door.


**A/N:**

**Written for the International Wizarding School Championship.**

**School and Year: Durmstrang, Year 3**

**Theme: Alohomora**

**Prompt: The Mirror of Erised [Main],** **"You're my very own prince charming," she said.****, ****Swish and flick. **

**Word Count: 2783**

* * *

_The Tale of Mirror and Time_

Hermione stares at the Mirror.

The smile that she gets from the Mirror of Erised mocks her.

Hermione does not understand why her deepest desire is to become worse than she is.

It is the same smile every damn day.

Just a reflection of a smiling, mocking Hermione standing in front of a large mahogany door. A door that Hermione can swear she has seen many times before.

But the connection vanishes before she can reach it.

So, she gazes at the glimmering Mirror.

With a swish and flick, the Mirror of Erised disappears into the wall of her apartment.

For a second, a memory about a red apple and dwarves assails her before she forces it back.

She checks her Occlumency shields and reviews the doors of her mind. Finding the doors firmly closed, she sighs and thinks about penance.

* * *

Hermione walks across the waiting area in St. Mungo's.

She is one of the many people in the Healer Program.

She keeps her head down.

She always blends into the crowd.

There is no other choice.

No one can ever know that she is the same twenty-year-old Hermione Jean Granger that was born a couple of months ago on 19th September, 1979.

* * *

During the days, she works hard. Harder than anyone else because that is a part of her she refuses to bury.

During the nights, she drinks and watches the Mirror of Erised.

* * *

She has no idea how it had happened.

Hermione remembers Harry telling her that people wasted away in front of the Mirror.

She had never actually seen it herself, only heard about it.

It is not like she can only recall bits and pieces.

No.

She knows they had won the Final Battle of Hogwarts. She knows she had started the Healer program without returning for the eighth year.

She also remembers the bone-deep feeling of isolation that had taken hold of her, refusing to let go and destroying every relationship she had ever had.

She remembers everything up until that point.

But she had woken up in 1979, missing months' worth of memories and no idea how she had gotten there.

"Alohomora!" she whispers, as she stares at the door behind her image.

Her glimmering, smirking reflection dissolves into vast nothingness – beckoning and calling her.

That almost, _almost_ answers her questions.

But she wakes up in the morning, in the same place with the same image and she wonders if this is a question she can never answer.

* * *

Another day.

Another swish and flick.

Another set of lies.

* * *

Her cover at St. Mungo's holds because there is a war going on and it helps that there is a shortage of Medistaff. Over the months, people have started disappearing or running away.

She has had enough experience with that.

Besides, it is not like Hermione is planning on fighting Voldemort in this time.

_No, thank you_, she wants to scream at the world. She has done her share.

But every time she hears about an attack, she wonders if time is fluid.

Hermione screams and shouts when she hears about a death she could have prevented.

She knows enough about magic to know that the Mirror of Erised is responsible for her plight.

Hence, she rages at the Mirror of Erised, shattering it.

Only to find it whole and mocking when she faces it again in the morning.

* * *

She stays away from all the redheads and people with Gryffindor-ish tendencies.

But that does not mean they do not find her.

Because they do and her life turns from worse to hell.

* * *

Despite the demanding hours at the hospital, the interns and first-year healers all find ways to interrupt Hermione's life.

The danger presented by the Magical World means that many young witches and wizards who want to _relax_ have to find Muggle pubs and bars to do so.

After saying no so many times, Hermione is forced to go to a pub.

Hermione hates every damn minute of it.

She broods and drinks in silence, swishing and flicking her wand under the table to prevent people from approaching her.

She contemplates how much longer she has to sit around and surreptitiously eyes the clock on the wall.

Just before it strikes twelve, she makes a move and gets out of her booth.

A prickle of awareness makes the hair at the back of her neck stand and she stills.

Hermione tries to inhale, only to be assaulted by a familiar smell.

The shackles of her mind rattle and she tries to catch her breath.

"Are you supposed to turn into a pumpkin or something?" a deep voice asks her.

Without turning, Hermione answers-

"Or something."

There is a chuckle and Hermione feels fear for the very first time in months.

"The crowd getting to you? Yeah, me too. You know what? I was thinking of going out myself. I can escort you outside for a breath of fresh air."

Despite everything, Hermione snorts.

"You're my very own prince charming," she says dryly. She wants to add something, but she turns too soon and comes face-to-face with a living ghost.

Sirius Black's grey eyes are watching her intently, lively and _young_ in a way she has never seen before.

She almost chokes on her own breath.

Sirius smiles charmingly at her and Hermione stares at him stupidly.

He starts talking but all the blood rushes to her head and Hermione does not hear a word.

Somewhere, deep in her mind, there is a sound of a mirror shattering.

Hermione pivots and rushes out of the door before Sirius can even blink.

* * *

When she gets home, she finds broken shards of the Mirror of Erised scattered all over her room.

Her knees hit the floor.

She feels a sting but she does not care.

"Alohomora!" she whispers.

But, like always, there is nothing.

* * *

Things start getting serious.

Hermione can tell because she works in St. Mungo's and the attacks and subsequent deaths have increased exponentially.

There are many survivors as well. Some Mediwitches remark at how lucky the patients are to have lived.

But as Hermione watches their haunted eyes, she knows that is not the truth.

The luckier ones _die_.

* * *

The protocols for safety increase.

The Ministry, just as incompetent and inconsequential as ever, issues safety warnings for the general public.

_Stay in your homes after dark_, they say.

_Lock your doors and seal them_, they repeat.

But Hermione thinks about the locks in her own mind and wonders if anyone is ever truly safe.

* * *

The day Harry Potter is born, Hermione cannot bear being alive in this time.

She has the worst headache the entire day.

Her heart seems to be mourning.

Her soul is raging and screaming.

She knows the facts.

In a year, Harry Potter will live and his parents will die.

Eventually, he would defeat Voldemort.

And because of that, Hermione cannot dare interfere.

She should not.

She wonders if she would still think the same way if she unlocked the chains that surround her mind.

* * *

She stares at the Mirror of Erised, begging it to answer her questions.

But faux-Hermione only smiles and twirls in front of the locked door.

* * *

She is working at St. Mungo's when she runs into Sirius Black.

Hermione knows he is an Auror and the member of the Order.

She wonders which job caused his injuries.

Sirius bloody Black recognizes her of course, as she swishes and flicks her wand to heal him.

Afterward, he is just like a dog with a bone.

Her lips twitch in response to her thoughts and she is amazed she can still smile.

His injuries prevent him from stalking her but his gray eyes burn into her back as she evades him once again.

* * *

When she gets home that day, she stands in front of the Mirror again.

"Alohomora!" she says, pointing her wand at the Mirror.

There is a searing pain in her head and she blacks out.

The mocking smile does not change.

* * *

Hermione runs into Sirius again.

She glares at him.

He glares right back at her.

She wonders why he keeps finding her, even as she figures out the answer. The Potters are in hiding, Remus is with the werewolves, Peter is likely with his 'sick mother' and Regulus is dead.

He is terribly alone, just like her.

For some insane, ill-begotten reason, he wants to talk to a stranger.

But before he can, Hermione is turning away again.

That does not stop him though–

"Always running away like a coward." he snarks at her back.

Hermione does not stop until she reaches home.

But the word resonates in her mind.

Coward.

Coward.

_Coward_!

Her hand swishes and flicks in a familiar motion and her entire apartment explodes.

As the debris rains around her, she looks at her hand in surprise.

Hermione had _never_ mastered wandless magic.

She looks at the shattered Mirror warily.

All she sees are dozens of disjointed smirks and glimmering closed doors.

* * *

Like always, Hermione keeps her head down while walking to St. Mungo's. That is the only reason why she does not notice an arm shoot out from somewhere and grab a hold of her robes.

Before she can even protest, she feels the tug of a portkey.

By the time she lands, disoriented and swearing, she is ready to curse whoever had the audacity to take her.

Well, she will. As soon as she finds them.

She glances around wildly, not finding a single person around her in the locked room she has been brought to.

"Easy!" a voice comes from behind and Hermione swings around–

"Where are you?!"

"Wand down, first."

Hermione glares at the empty space.

She thinks.

If the person truly wanted to hurt her, they would have disarmed her already.

She puts her wand away.

"Who are you?" she asks.

"Prince Charming, who else?" a deep voice answers and a second later, she hears some rustling (_of-bloody-course_) and Sirius Black's face appears as he takes off the invisibility cloak.

Before Hermione can demand answers, Sirius takes her wrist and starts dragging her towards the door.

With a swish, it is unlocked and he drags her towards another.

Another flick and the other room opens.

It is only when Hermione is inside that she notices the blood on Sirius's robes and his countenance.

He stops in front of a bed, where a figure is lying prone.

"Fix him!" Sirius demands imperiously.

And Hermione Granger can do nothing but stare at the figure of James Potter.

* * *

An hour later, Hermione wipes the blood from her hands in the adjoined bathroom.

The Potters are supposed to be in hiding by now, so just what is James Potter doing gallivanting around?

_She will not ask. She will not ask. She will not ask. _

She shuts the water off and looks at her reflection in the mirror.

It is the same smirking image the Mirror of Erised shows.

She almost screams.

She punches the mirror instead.

* * *

She ignores the demanding questions and the reluctant gratitude of Sirius Black.

She finds her way home before Sirius can offer.

The image of James Potter on the bed is starting to haunt her and she does not know why.

* * *

As she sits in front of the Mirror, the reflection changes into the body of James Potter.

She stares at it in silence and her head starts hurting.

Slowly, the image transforms and there is a lightning-shaped scar on James–

No.

_No_.

It is Harry, lying on the bed. Hermione can see some of the newer scars he had gotten in the War.

Her eyebrows furrow deep in thought.

She _knows_ Harry had survived the war.

He had killed Voldemort.

Suddenly, images flash in her mind.

_Harry, catatonic._

_Harry, screaming._

_Harry, dying._

Tears run down her face in a stream.

She cries for the first time in years.

She mourns for her best friend, lost in a prison of his own mind while she is lost somewhere in time.

Her reflection in the Mirror looks at her somberly.

* * *

Days later, she stands in front of the Mirror of Erised again, looking at faux-Hermione sitting against the locked door, smiling.

Hermione tilts her head and from that angle, the lock of the door glimmers.

A glimmer right next to faux-Hermione's head.

She takes a deep breath and takes out her wand.

She turns it towards herself.

Faux-Hermione's smile falls.

"Alohomora!" she shouts with intent, wand trained towards her head.

* * *

There is a click of a door opening.

There is a noise of her cage breaking.

There is a pain, unlike anything Hermione has ever experienced before.

Then, there is nothing.

* * *

When Hermione wakes up, she starts to understand.

She can recall the madness that had trapped Harry Potter.

She remembers her desperation.

The way she had delved into unknown magic.

The way she had manipulated the Mirror of Erised into making her desires come true.

But Harry had not gotten better.

Hermione had tried to find better ways, experimenting with time through the Mirror – past, present, future.

And, now she was here.

* * *

She walks towards the Mirror of Erised and watches it.

If Hermione stepped into the Mirror, as she had done before, would she find her desires?

Last time, it had shown a healed Harry and Hermione had dashed into the Mirror like a fool.

She had woken up in 1979, with memories missing and her mind locked.

In her arrogance, Hermione had not thought about the magic she had poured into the Mirror.

She had given it a will and the magic of the Mirror now held her and manipulated her.

Hermione looks at the reflection in dawning horror.

Faux-Hermione smiles the same way as she opens the door.

Hermione spies the image of Harry Potter in his hospital bed.

Hermione looks at Harry's wretched figure and cries.

_No_.

She could never step into the Mirror of Erised again.

She would never be able to destroy it, tied as it was to her magic, but she could learn to ignore it as she should have done before.

Faux-Hermione soothes Harry as he trashes in pain.

Hermione uses all her will to steel her heart against the sight as she swishes and flicks her wand.

The Mirror of Erised disappears into the wall.

If this is her future, Hermione wants no part in it.

She knows about the dangers of changing time.

But.

Her presence has changed things.

Because time is fluid.

_She_ has made it fluid by unlocking it.

* * *

Hermione walks to St. Mungo's, head held high this time.

Of course, that is also the day bloody Death Eaters decide to attack the hospital.

* * *

Her heart constricts in pain as she tries to stop the flow of blood coming from a small child.

She tries to fix him and many others.

Most of the times, she fails.

_Look at what your penance did_, her mind whispers cruelly.

But that only strengthens her resolve.

She rushes towards the warded doors and opens them with a swish and flick.

Hermione runs to the ground floor, heartbeat pounding in her ears.

The sight of Death Eaters, Aurors and the Order fighting is very familiar.

She does not care about keeping her head down anymore.

She does not care who might see her fighting.

She locks her targets and unleashes her fury.

* * *

People give her a wide berth as Hermione walks away from the scene. Most of the Death Eaters that had attacked were either dead or captured.

She turns to step outside and just as she inhales deeply, her nose is assaulted by the smell of a wet dog.

She halts and turns around.

She raises an eyebrow as Sirius moves closer.

He stares at her intently.

"Where in Merlin's saggy balls have you and your wandless magic been before?"

Hermione rolls her eyes.

"Charming, as always." she retorts.

Sirius is undeterred, however.

He grasps her arm firmly as if afraid she was going to run away again.

_Oh, well. _

Hermione sighs and looks up at him.

His eyes glimmer with understanding, intrigue and something else she cannot quite put her finger on.

The glimmer is different from what she sees in the Mirror of Erised.

Perhaps she can help him unravel the mystery she has become in his eyes.

Perhaps she can reveal everything and answer every burning question he has.

And perhaps, along the way, they can defeat a certain Dark Lord and live to tell the wild tale of mirrors and time.

* * *

_-fin-_


End file.
